Credit cards are widely used for many consumer, commercial and other transactions. As used herein, the term “credit card” includes secured and unsecured credit cards, as well as debit cards and other stored value cards in various form factors, such as wallet-sized, keychain-sized, etc.
Unfortunately, with the proliferation of credit cards, credit card fraud has become all too common. A thief can steal a credit card or a credit card number, and then use it to purchase thousands of dollars of goods and services before the card is denied. Many measures have been provided to reduce the possibility of fraud, including card holder signatures on the credit card, a picture identification on the credit card and/or the requirement for a separate picture identification of a credit card user, security codes printed on the credit card, billing address verification, purchase pattern screening and/or other known techniques. Problems of credit card fraud may be compounded when the credit card number is used to make a remote purchase, such as an internet purchase or a purchase over the telephone.
A credit card authorization system is described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,612,488, 6,913,194 and 7,104,444, all to Suzuki, and all entitled Method and System to Prevent Fraudulent Payment In Credit/Debit Card Transactions, and Terminals Therefor. As noted in the common Abstract of these three patents, during a transaction authorization process using a transaction terminal disposed in a credit transaction member store and connected with a host computer, user validation or credit administration is carried out by using a portable communication terminal to input to the host computer identity information which has been previously registered in the portable communication terminal and/or location information for the portable communication terminal.
Notwithstanding these and other measures, credit card fraud continues to be a problem. It is, therefore, desirable to provide additional measures that can reduce or prevent credit card fraud. Moreover, the additional security that is provided should be balanced with the convenience to the legitimate cardholder.